Seth Meyers shows off love for Pittsburgh

PASADENA, Calif. — It’s a busy week for NBC’s “Late Night” host Seth Meyers and his devotion to Pittsburgh, which shows up in the third season premiere of IFC’s “Documentary Now” and on PBS’s “Finding Your Roots.”

Mr. Meyers, whose father grew up on Heberton Street near Dilworth Traditional Academy in East Liberty, wrote the two-part “Documentary Now” (11 p.m. Wednesday) season premiere, “Batsh*t Valley,” which follows a Pacific Northwest cult that turns out not to be what it seems.

Mr. Meyers said the initial inspiration for the episode was “The Source Family,” a 2012 documentary about 1970s utopian living, but then Netflix’s “Wild Wild Country” came along and Mr. Meyers decided “Valley” should take a page from that popular docuseries, too.

The episodes, particularly the second one, include Steelers references galore, including the cult’s preferred color scheme (think: black and gold).

“Even when I’m working on something with nothing to do with the Steelers, 5 percent of my brain is thinking about the Steelers,” Mr. Meyers said in a phone interview from his New York office. “It finds its way in there.”

So, why does a cult have such strong ties to the Steelers?

“It’s from the idea that when people start cults, they just build this religion from nothing, and it was really, what would be the stupidest starting point for a religion, and that was sort of where I ended up,” Mr. Meyers said. “I was probably projecting: If I was a cult leader, it’s hard to imagine I wouldn’t tie it into my obsession with the Steelers.”

Mr. Meyers said while he’s a fan, over the years he has learned he pales compared to some Steelers devotees.

“My brother and I drove from New Hampshire going to college together in Chicago and

we stopped in Pittsburgh to sleep outside Three Rivers Stadium in 1994 to get playoff tickets,” he said, “and I would have said I was the biggest Steelers fan on God’s green Earth but listening to other people there talk about the Steelers made me realize I’ve got to diversify my interests.”

Mr. Meyers, who was last in Pittsburgh for a Steelers game in October, added another Pittsburgh flavor to the episode by casting Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton as a beleaguered FBI agent investigating the cult.

“I don’t just like Michael because he’s from Pittsburgh, he is one of my favorite actors, and he was the first name on our [wish] list, and it probably helped there was that Pittsburgh element, which only made him seem like a more perfect fit,” Mr. Meyers said.

For PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” (8 p.m. Tuesday, WQED-TV), Henry Louis Gates Jr. researched Mr. Meyers’ family history, discovering information about Mr. Meyers’ great-grandfather (on his dad’s side) who immigrated to the U.S. in 1870 and settled in Pittsburgh.

Mr. Gates said he’s been friendly with Mr. Meyers’ family and once told Mr. Meyers he’d like to have him on “Finding Your Roots,” and nothing came of it until they ran into each other at LaGuardia Airport.

“I wasn’t going to mention it, and he came up to me and he said, ‘My parents have been on me about accepting your invitation and I’m going to do it,’” Mr. Gates recalled.

Mr. Meyers said his dad’s side of the family had done some family tree research, but “things were blurry. This brought it into focus” and revealed new details, including that his great-grandfather worked as a peddler.

“We thought it was probably something in that realm,” Mr. Meyers said. “It isn’t like we were thinking he was an opera singer.”